Guerschon Yabusele thinks he’ll fit right in with his new team.
In an interview with SKWEEK, the Knicks’ newest addition sounded off on why he took his talents to the Big Apple.
“I think the Knicks was a great decision,” Yabusele said. “I feel like their team really matched my DNA. To fight, to play hard, to be kind of like the underdogs who go and fight every night.”
Yabusele, 29, added that he was impressed by the Knicks’ team chemistry last season.
“It’s a couple of teams that we played against, and I was looking at them like ‘Oh my god, this team plays good together.’ They’re a good team. I can tell it’s a good group of guys,” he said.
The 6-foot-8 Frenchman was drafted 16th overall by the Celtics in 2016, but appeared in just 74 games over two seasons before heading to Europe.
Yabusele’s excellent play during the 2024 Paris Olympics for the French national team helped him return to the NBA on a deal with the 76ers.
In 70 games for Philadelphia last season, Yabusele averaged 11 points and 5.6 rebounds per game while shooting a solid 50.1 percent overall and 38 percent from deep.
Prior to re-joining the NBA, Yabusele was one of the best basketball players in all of Europe.
He spent three seasons in Real Madrid from 2021-2024 and starred on a 2023 team that won the EuroLeague Championship, the most prestigious basketball title outside of the NBA.
Yabusele also won a Spanish ACB league title in 2024 and 2022 with Madrid, a league considered to be among the best domestically outside of America.
His return to the league landed him a two-year deal with the Knicks worth roughly $12 million with a player option in the second season.
Yabusele is expected to get major minutes in the Knicks’ frontcourt rotation behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson.
“I can’t wait to start,” he said during the interview. “It’s the right place at the right time.”
In addition to bringing in Yabusele, the Knicks also named Mike Brown the franchise’s new head coach and signed veteran guard Jordan Clarkson to a free agent deal.
